I love flowers. I grow them– Wait, I need to qualify that. I am not a gardener’s gardener and having a green thumb was not bestowed on me at birth (nor any other time in my life).

So what I grow are weed-flowers, bulbs, and any other posies that volunteer to come up each season, or those that can withstand being first nurtured (planted and watered), then invariably neglected (because I forget to water them) and they still thrive.

But what I enjoy more than anything is photographing flowers wherever they happen to be planted.

This Easter, my husband gave me two very pretty pink hydrangeas. They stand about fifteen inches tall and the heads of flowers are bush-worthy huge. My husband thought they would look nice at the top of the chimney tile tubes (recycled from an old chimney). The oblong tubes stand upright and are about three feet high. I use these tiles to mark the walkway between my kitchen porch flower bed and the line of lilies and chives on the other side of that flower bed. An eight inch square pot fits nicely into the top of the tubes.

Trouble is, my husband didn’t read the little label stuck in the hydrangeas. I read the label and discovered the plants are good if the temperature runs from 50 to 80 degrees. That’s June to October weather, not April, not even May because we get frosts and snow is always a possibility.

So, the two pots of hydrangeas will remain on my dining room table until better weather. Then I’ll put them outdoors in the chimney tubes. Then it’ll be amazing if I remember when it does get hot to water them daily.

Of course, come the first autumn frost and they’re toast. Unless I bring them indoor. No, that will only prolong their death. You see, whenever I have this brilliant idea to keep indoor flowers or plants, I forget about them. Which means that despite my best intentions, I don’t water them often enough and, well, they wither and die.

6 Responses to FLOWERS, FLOWERS, FLOWERS

I have a reputation (undeserved) among friends that I’m good with plants. For years, people cajoled me into taking in their half-dead ones for rehab, until I ran out of space and begged them to stop. Truth is, with the southern exposure in my condo, all I had to do was keep them watered and fed and the work was done. Everything thrived with little effort on my part.

When I’m too busy and forget the little darlings, everything changes. Right now, it looks like a desert around here!

Lucky you to have sunshine in your house. The farmhouse we live in must have been built by someone who hated sunlight. I’m lucky when the dining room windows let in a couple of hours of late afternoon sunshine. Which is not enough for any plant to thrive.

I can usually kill anything off. Did a vegie plot last year and managed to get cherry tomatoes and zucchinis to grow but everything else was a no go. My daughter has given me a succulent so maybe I’ll do better with that.

My condo is also south-facing and my flowers and I thrive here. I have managed to get flowers to bloom which normally don’t even think about it. And it seems my writing is also blooming since we moved here almost a year ago!